The Employees’ Provident Fund Organisation (EPFO) provides an online facility for submitting wage details by employers for pensions on higher wages. The EPFO has extended the date to submit the wage details to January 31, 2025.
“A final opportunity is being given to the employers till 31.01.2025 to ensure that employers process and upload these pending Applications for Validation of Option / Joint Options,” EPFO said in a statement.
Additionally, the EPFO has also asked employers to provide clarifications asked by EPFO by January 15, 2025, to process the higher pension applications.
The EPFO has asked for additional information or clarification on 4.66 lakh cases among the applications it has received.
Higher pension provision
In 2022, a Supreme Court verdict allowed existing Employees’ Pension Scheme (EPS) members, as of September 1, 2014, to contribute nearly 8.33 per cent of their salaries as pension.
Following the SC order, an online facility was launched on February 26, 2023, to submit an application for validation of options or joint options till May 3, 2023. This time limit was later extended to June 26, 2023, for eligible pensioners to fill out applications. This date was further extended to July 11, 2023. Around 17.49 lakh applications were received till July,2023.
The date for employers to provide the wage details was extended after requests from Employers & Employers’ Associations to extend the time period for uploading wage details of applicant pensioners/members.
Following this request, the deadline for submission of wage details was September 30, 2023. This was later extended to December 31, 2023, and later to May 31, 2024, for employers to process the applications.
Despite these extensions, the EPFO has stated that more than 3.1 lakh applications are still pending with the employers. Therefore, the EPFO has extended the date of submission of wage details by employers to January 31, 2025.